It's long been suspected that I am a bit of a shopaholic. My house would confess this sin with closets busting with too many clothes and and a large tower of shoe boxes. At one point in time I owned 37 pairs of pants of varying types, styles, and fabrics. In my defense, not all of them fit or were in wearable shape at the time. I am afraid to count the current number of pairs of pants that I own for fear I may eclipse the aforementioned number.

I grew up in a middle class family that didn't make a lot of money, but sacrificed to allow me to have a broken-down horse that was a gift from a family friend, eventually trading up to a nice horse that was moderately priced. As I grew up, my Father worked extremely hard and earned a much better income that allowed my younger teenaged sister to enjoy riding a horse that was imported from Europe. We hardly saw my workaholic Dad during the week but we reaped the monetary benefits. So I lived without money and with money.

I've held a job pretty consistently since I was 14 years old. My only unemployed periods were my first year of college and after a nervous breakdown my second year, second semester of college. In May I'll have worked for Bob's Hogs and Weiner Pigs for 11 years. I certainly haven't always made much money, but it's been enough. The really interesting thing is that whenever there has been a money crisis, money always shows up.

When The Jeffrey got terribly sick and we though his liver was having all sorts of issues but it turned out to be bladder stones that were ripping his insides apart my commission check was unexpectedly high.

When one of the cars unexpectedly needed the brakes done Frinklin had a random monetary bonus kick in. This has happened TWICE with two different employers who almost NEVER gave cash bonuses. Weird.

When I was 21 years old and had an ancient Ford Bronco II that insisted on breaking down every other day my Grandmother stepped up and gave me a cash infusion out of nowhere "because you need it." I was able to fix the car and take care of some other things that had been weighing heavily. She told me she had set aside the money for college or for a wedding, but at the time I wasn't in school and was a lesbian. Thanks Nana!

Anyway, back to the point.

Because I've had a fortuitous relationship with money, I've not been particularly careful with money. I've always been able to pay my bills on time, have good credit, and don't have any collection agencies stalking me. And I have a nasty habit of spending money I don't have. Even when my husband is out of a job.

Like yesterday. When I was at the new Nordstrom Rack in Southcenter after making a particularly successful sales call and meeting up with Frinklin after he had a particularly successful (cross fingers!) interview with what appears to be a great potential employer. I was looking for a Perlina purse that I had fallen in love with a few weeks earlier when we were a DINK household to celebrate our particularly successful (although potentially fictitious) fabulous day.

I found the Perlina bag, and it was cute. But then I turned a corner and There. It. Was. I heard a rushing in my ears. Frinklin spoke, but I heard nothing but the Angels singing. I walked forward, and touched It. The chorus intensified.

Finally, Frinklin's insistent voice broke through, "How much is it?"

"What?" I didn't look up. I was too busy opening pockets and noticing the cheetah print interior. So amazing!

"Ensie...how much? It's got an electronic tag on it. It's going to be a lot."

"Fuck," I said. Reality setting in, "I can't get this bag. It's going to be crazy expensive. It's Dolce and Gabbana." Searching out the tag I finally answer Frinklin, "Holy shit! It's four hundred dollars!" I got silence as an answer as I continued to fondle the bag. My heart raced.

"Honey. Buy it."

"What?"

"Buy it."

I thought my husband had lost his mind at this point. He's unemployed! We only have one income! I started to argue with him briefly, but then realized I was arguing my way out of a kick-ass Dolce and Gabbana bag that I didn't know how to quit. I quietly whispered, "OK!" as though we were getting away with some sort of crazy crime. An employee was flagged down, the bag was freed, and we were out the door with our loot a few minutes later.

The only down side was that I didn't know how much money I had saved on the bag. It didn't have an original price on it. I spent a good hour searching the interwebs for my bag (which is tan leather, oh so soft, with a cheetah print interior), only to find that it doesn't exist. There is only a mutant version currently available, priced at $2,195.00:

Perlina, I feel bad for cheating on you, but I love my new D&G bag. And if it makes me an uncontrollable shopaholic, so be it. I challenge anyone to step into the realm of really good handbags and/or shoes and then try to go back to crappy ones. If nothing else, I treat my quality items like gold so they last forever.

I'd like to give a huge thank you to my husband, who gave me the OK to buy something I love and really wanted. I told him that he doesn't have to buy me anything for my birthday or Christmas this year. I love you honey!

Posted by: Ensie at 05:30 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Sometimes right in the middle of living your life, the road will shift and you find yourself falling. It happens to everyone. Often more than once. It happened to me in college. I can remember the exact moment I stepped off the path -whoosh!- to graduation and a degree and instead ended up at a series of junior colleges and never quite found my way back again. My feet are once again on solid ground, but it took a long time to get there. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, although I do wonder how my life might have turned out differently sometimes, but I don't regret the decisions I've made and the life I have now.

Last week the ground swelled and bucked and tossed Frinklin into limbo. The company formally known as The Corporate Behemoth now known as Those Fuckwads Aetna fired Frinklin without warning. Without any warning at all and definitely without a severance package. Official reason, "failure to improve performance statistics." Unofficial reason, "It's just not working out." After three fucking years of stellar performance reviews and busting his ass. My suspicion is that they are getting rid of him because they announced that they will be outsourcing his position within the next year. They offered to have he and other people in his position train folks in the Philippines just a couple of months ago.

On the one hand this isn't the worst news. When my husband came downstairs to tell me I looked him square in the eye and said, "Thank God you never need to go to that crap job again," and gave him a huge hug. Frinklin's been half-heartedly looking for another job for a while. He hated being tied to his desk (granted, at home) in an hourly position, listening to people scream at him for problems that weren't his fault. It left him grouchy at the end of the day and dreading the work week. And they never gave bonuses, but a steady supply of branded alarm clocks, laminated certificates, and once a crappy canvas folding chair that one of our cats peed on. Thanks asshats!

The bad part is the money end of things. It's not good when one half of the household income disappears. There is, thankfully, unemployment which will bring in a portion of what's been lost. And I started making calls to see what we could do. That did not go well.

Our mortgage company always gives you a happy little message that if you anticipate having trouble paying your mortgage you should contact them. I let them know that I don't think we'll have trouble, but wanted to know what their potential solutions would be. Their "solution" is to make a double mortgage payment now, allowing us to skip a payment in the future.

"See how that helps?" the representative chirped to me.

"Not exactly." When I explained that I don't have the funds to make a double payment now, allowing us to skip a payment in the future she told me that she couldn't really help me further. That our payments would need to be made on time as usual, or if made late that our credit would be affected. How exactly is this helpful? I'm not sure. She couldn't tell me either.

My next call was to the folks that manage my 401K. I have a significant amount in my 401K as I've been paying into it for 8 years. I did take out a loan about 3 years ago that I've been paying back steadily. The 401K folks did tell me that I can take out a "Hardship Withdrawal." Fantastic! Send me the forms! The forms arrived and I found that I don't qualify for a Hardship Withdrawal as there are only four reasons one may make said withdrawal:

1. Payment of tuition for post secondary education for me, spouse, dependents.
2. Payment of unreimbursed medical expenses for me, spouse, dependents.
3. Payment to prevent loss of primary residence through eviction or foreclosure.
4. Purchase of primary residence, excluding mortgage payments.

So you see, I must stop making payments immediately on our mortgage, allow our credit to fall to shit, and hope that the bank begins foreclosure proceedings on our home post-haste in order to withdraw the money. It's a perfect plan! What about those of us that want to make our payments on time and keep our credit scores good?! The logic of this whole thing escapes me. Plus it's my Goddamn money!

We do have credit cards that we can live off of. It's just that we already have credit card payments and I don't want to be a slave to debt for the next 20 years. I don't want to have to go to the Bank of Parents to solve this (they have money, but not tons of it to give me).

To top it all off, Frinklin's last paycheck wasn't direct deposited as usual, the Fuckwads are mailing it to us to arrive who-knows-when. They haven't officially reported Frinklin as terminated, so his 401K can't release any funds to him. And his ex-boss won't call him back about anything (four messages and counting).

We're holding their fucking computer hostage until I get some answers.

Posted by: Ensie at 05:15 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 Sucktastic totally sums it up! I don't know if we're much more on top of it, just more on top of finding out how screwed we are. He was in Provider Relations, handing calls and assisting doctors' offices with claims. He knows the insurance and provider side of claims as having experience in training. Here's hoping my job is secure!

Posted by: ensie at February 12, 2008 05:55 PM (yNgp+)

2 oh, man that bites; I know that situation, and I know that feeling and it's just.... Ew. Bad. Here's big virtual hugs your way, since I can't think of any merry platitude to make things right. (((((((ensie)))))))

Posted by: jcbetty at February 12, 2008 07:04 PM (lvOTL)

3 Just wow. Maybe when they notice their computer is missing, they'll straighten up. Maybe he could go into the medical side of stuff? Here's hoping he can find something good soon.

Posted by: Eden at February 12, 2008 07:47 PM (BDCWt)

4 Maybe you should hire this guy to send Aetna a message. Love you both -- let us know how we can help.

Posted by: K to the F at February 12, 2008 09:13 PM (ROdeo)

5 God that sucks...I'm so sorry.

Posted by: erin at February 13, 2008 05:30 AM (+Ng2w)

6 Oh my gawd - that totally and completely blows. But like you say, the upside is buh-bye crapass job. Sending good job-finding vibes your way! I bet hubby'll find something fantastic and then he can send a big old finger to those asscats!

Posted by: Heather at February 13, 2008 07:43 AM (Zx158)

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I waited in one of the enormous lines to get into Key Arena today. Frinklin and I got there about 10:40 and the line was growing in leaps and bounds (we were standing under the Space Needle). After 11 we were practically running as we moved forward to get inside - but there were two lines and we missed getting in by just a couple of hundred people. It was about 11:15 when we were turned away. We were told they had 14,000 people in the stands and another 5,000 on the floor. We booked it out of there (yay for valet parking at the Needle!) and arrived home just in time to see the speech live on Northwest Cable News.

When we left there were hordes of people behind us in line as well as tons of people still arriving by the thousands. We let as many people as we could know that Key Arena was full, but most continued on to see if they could still get in. Most said they would be caucusing for Obama tomorrow and when it continued to be announced that the event was full people's attitude was, "That sucks that we didn't get in, but that's fantastic!"

There's been some discussion as to weather Obama has outdrawn Hillary at their Seattle events. Even with their respective venue choices, I'd say that Obama could have easily had another 7 - 10 thousand people should he have chosen a larger venue. I don't think that Hillary could have drawn that kind of numbers.

In other news - Frinklin met Janet Huckabee at the Starbucks headquarters this morning. But I'll let him tell that story later on his own blog. He's busy at opening night for his new show (How the Other Half Loves - tickets available now!) right now. It's a funny show he tells me. I'll be there a week from Saturday.

If you're a Democrat and you need information on the how to and where to caucus for (Obama) your (Obama) chosen (Obama) candidate (Obama) in Tacoma (did I mention that Obama rocks?) check out http://wa-democrats.org/. Everything goes down tomorrow at 1 PM. Be there or be square.

Also - (FINALLY!) our long backordered Obama yard sign and rally sign arrived. They went up in our yard and window to tell the world that we're in the cool crowd. Hopefully the yard sign won't blow away!

Posted by: Ensie at 06:34 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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